When the alarm sounds and people must evacuate a building, the first priority is to make sure that everyone was able to get out as fast as possible. The usual fire drill procedure is to evacuate the people to a suitable muster point where a fire warden conducts a roll call and checks the name of the ones present against a list of the building occupants expected to be seen at that muster point. The list should preferably be provided to the search and rescue services upon their arrival for assistance in their onsite operations.
Pen and paper mustering solutions require that emergency wardens conduct roll calls before noisy crowds and manually produce attendance reports to be consulted by the fire and rescue services upon their arrival on site. Such solutions are impractical and lengthy, especially in cases of larger evacuations, and as a result, the reports are rarely produced in a timely manner.
Common electronic solutions involve a laptop that keeps an up-to-date list of all occupants, coupled with handheld card readers used to scan the badges of the evacuees. A peer-to-peer wireless network is established between the laptop and the card readers so that as cards are being read, the laptop user is presented with seen/not-seen feedback. If no wireless network can be used, the handheld devices can collect the card reads, which can then be synchronized back to the laptop using a USB cable. Since this solution requires that every badge be scanned, and since handheld card readers can read seven to eight cards per minute, it can become unpractical when the number of occupants increases.
Electronic mustering solutions used within war zones can be adapted for use within the context of evacuations for expeditious mustering. Such solutions consist in mobile applications that enable survivors to report themselves before relevant authorities using Wi-Fi or SMS technologies. However, if the aforementioned mobile applications were adapted for use within the context of evacuations, the reports that they would produce would be unreliable; not only would a building occupant be able to report from within the building, but also, someone can use a building occupant's device to issue a false report.